Charles Pavlos, candy business owner, dies

Businessman had owned Jeppi Nut & Candy

Charles Pavlos, a retired Baltimore businessman and former owner of the Jeppi Nut & Candy Co., died Jan. 27 of kidney failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 89.

The son of Greek immigrants, Mr. Pavlos was born in Richmond, Va. He spent his early years in Miami until moving to Baltimore at the beginning of the Depression with his family, who settled in Hamilton.

After graduating in 1939 from City College, he went to work at the old Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River, where he was eventually promoted to supervisor.

He enlisted in the Navy in 1942 and served as a member of the deck crew of the aircraft carrier USS Guadalcanal, which served in the Atlantic.

Mr. Pavlos was aboard the Guadalcanal in 1944 when Avengers from the aircraft carrier and the destroyers USS Chatelain and Pillsbury captured the Nazi U-boat 505.

The Guadalcanal towed the war prize to Bermuda, and the event marked the first time since 1815 that an enemy warship had been captured on the high seas by the Navy.

Discharged in 1945, Mr. Pavlos remained in the Naval Reserves until 1967.

In the late 1940s, he and his brother, Paul Pavlos, who now lives in Salisbury, purchased Davis', a soda fountain at Park Heights and Belvedere avenues, that sold tobacco, magazines and the Daily Racing Form.

"It was right across from Pimlico. He remembered when the Cohen brothers, who owned the track, came in to buy big cigars, which they chewed and smoked," said a daughter, Diane Sitaras of Fallston.

In the late 1960s, the brothers sold the business to former Baltimore Colt Willie Richardson.

In 1972, Mr. Pavlos purchased a pizza parlor in South Bethany, Del. That year, he also purchased the Jeppi Nut & Candy Co., now Jeppi Nut & Candy Distributors, which was founded in 1884.

He continued to operate both businesses with the help of his wife and children until retiring in 2009. The two businesses remain in the family.

Mr. Pavlos was a Civil War buff and enjoyed visiting battlefields with family and friends and explaining the logistics of the battle. He was also an avid Baltimore Colts, Orioles and Ravens fan.

Mr. Pavlos, a longtime resident of West Lake Avenue who had lived at the Mercy Ridge retirement community since 2002, was a lifelong member of the Greek Cathedral of the Annunciation and Ahepa, a Greek charitable organization.

His wife of 55 years, the former Stella Krometis, died in 2002.

Services were Monday at his church.

Also surviving are a son, Theodore Pavlos of Ruxton; another daughter, Marina Little of Phoenix, Baltimore County; two sisters, Harriett Davis of Los Angeles and Fofo May of Baltimore; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.